LAS VEGAS — Slim screens with thin black bezels can make HDTVs look like digital artwork. But hang one on the wall, and a problem quickly presents itself: What to do about the ugly black cords snaking out towards your set-top box, home theater PC or other TV appliances?
Wireless HD, a new wireless interface standard, could get rid of the wires connecting your TV to accessories such as Blu-ray players and portable music players. This week, several TV manufacturers, including Panasonic, LG and Vizio, announced plans to deliver Wireless HD-enabled sets in 2010.
In addition to eliminating cable clutter, Wireless HD can offer fast data transfers, enabling high-definition audio and video streaming at a rate of more than 10 Gigabits per second.
“It is becoming important to consumers to have a way to stream HD video content wirelessly,” says John Marshall, chairman of the Wireless HD consortium. “We can do that with Wireless HD and we can do it really fast.”
Panasonic’s and LG’s support lend the standard new credibility. And Vizio, which sells more HDTVs in the United States than any other manufacturer, will give Wireless HD a further push, as the company is expected to include it as a key feature in its products by the end of the year.
Today, connecting HDTVs to set-top boxes or Blu-ray players means consumers have to buy HDMI cables. You could try connecting TV devices via Wi-Fi, but 802.11n only offers 600 Mbps — not enough bandwidth to transfer HD video in an uncompressed format.
“An HDMI cable transfers content about 30 to 40 times faster than Wi-Fi,” says John Lemoncheck, CEO of SiBeam, a chipmaker that is supporting the Wireless HD standard in its products.
Even competing standards such as WHDI can only offer video data rates of up to 3 Gbps.
Wireless HD gives consumers flexibility, says Randy Lawson, an analyst with research firm iSuppli.
“A lot of people get ripped off by very expensive HDMI cables for their TVs,” he says. “Those $50 HDMI Monster cables, you don’t need that anymore if you get Wireless HD-ready TVs.”
And as HDTVs get thinner and thinner, the Wireless HD standard can set them free, he says.
“With those very thin TVs, you might want to hang it on a different wall than where you have the shelves with the Blu-ray player,” says Lawson. “You can’t do that with 4-foot-long cable.”
The Wireless HD consortium was formed in 2006 with support from all the major TV manufacturers. A year later the consortium released the first version of the wireless HD specification. The idea was to offer a way to transfer audio and video wirelessly at low cost, with high reliability and little change in the viewing experience.
The latest generation of the standard supports 3-D TVs, 4K resolution (which is four times the current maximum HD resolution of 1080p), and data transfer speeds of about 1 Gbps for portable devices such as digital music players connected to HDTVs.
“The first generation was really about one consumer company, Sony, adopting it,” says Lawson. “But with generation two, we are seeing every TV company has it.”
The Wireless HD standard still has some challenges that could slow it down. Wireless HD is a point-to-point technology, which means it can offer a range of only about 32 feet. Compare that to the slower WHDI standard, which has a range of 100 feet, meaning TVs in multiple rooms can be networked together.
“If you want to create a video network for your entire house, you can’t do that now with Wireless HD,” says Lawson.
Photo: Priya Ganapati
